Read 15 Minutes Every Day

Many youngsters are assigned to read 15 or so minutes outside of school every day.  It is the most important piece of homework assigned each day by teachers, but also the most difficult to enforce, and usually the first casualty when life gets busier.  However, building the habits of a lifelong learner and reader happens just as much at home as at school, if not more so.

Here is another way to picture the importance of reading:

Some ways to mix up reading, or to fit it better into your family's routine:

• Family bed read-aloud: share a longer, classic children's book as a family.  We have read The Hobbit, Ender's Game, Watership Down, The One and Only Ivan, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and others.  We are currently working on Huckleberry Finn.
• Read in bed before bedtime.
• Read in the car on the way to/from school or other place.
• Take turn reading pages (you get even pages, your second grader gets odd pages).
• Listen to your second grader read aloud while you cook dinner.
• Have a bookshelf by the front door, and if a second grader is ready to go and waiting, they read.